Wednesday, February 1, 2017

SUMMER SAVORS

Sweetpea and I have been missing our
warm-weather walks and activities. We
were just talking of popsicles in the shade last night. What a lovely phrase, that, conjuring moments
of childhood and memories in the making.
As we sat on the patio with our break-and-share treats, I told her about
the trips to the little corner store for a fresh popsicle---none of us could
have comprehended the actual having of a popsicle in our own freezers---that
would have been like harboring a fairy or Batmanactually at your house.
Usually two of us would troop along together, knowing the flavor would depend
on who-had-the-nickel, for buyer got to choose. One of us
would grasp the whole thing firmly in our two hands, wrapper still on, and
gently give that little wrist-snap which divided it into its two lovely
intended halves. There's a purpose to a popsicle, aside from the
cold sweet refuge on a Summer day---they're MEANT to be shared.
They're incised in the exact spot which physics dictates as just right, and
when they snap with that vague little crunch, and one half is handed to a
friend, it's a charming Childhood Communion, with a satisfaction of
anticipation and of companionship not available in a cupcake or plate of
cookies.

One of us would usually "keep the
paper," to catch errant drips, then we'd walk out and amble home, enjoying
our treat, trying to capture every escaping drop as the hundred degrees of the
day worked its will on the melting ice, running the colors down our elbows as
we walked in that careful forward tilt to keep the stains from our
clothes.

I told Sweetpea about REAL screen
doors---the flappy kind, with the strong, faithful spring which smacked the
door behind you (or you in the behind) as you went in and out, to a Mama-chorus
of "Don't slam the door!" all up and down the block. The
cunning little flip-latch was a bit of a mystery as I described it, until I
made a little flat circle, thumb and forefinger, and hooked the other index
into it, pantomiming lock.

She certainly knows "picnic
table," with the attached benches, for they're in every park, but they're
so well maintained that she hasn't had the full experience---the
brush-off-the-bird-poo, swing one leg over, then slide your shorts-clad skin
gently along to get settled, without getting a splinter or flake of paint into
your hide. Those old tables were for EVERYTHING (I will not mention
the year-round fish-cleaning which went on at the one between our house and the
next, for it put me off seafood for life).

We sat at those tables for picnics, for
cookouts. We read and embroidered and did little
crafts-of-the-day, scrolling our names or initials on notebooks with the
names of various boys over the years, never daring to incise them into the
wood of the table like that daring and slightly-trashy Opal-in-the-eighth-grade
did---she of the grubby rhinestone jewelry and black suede ankle-strap
high-heels-for-school. Our Mamas would have been
mortified.

We carried our little phonographs out there
and spun the same Elvis record until somebody's parent (not necessarily our
own) shouted "Play something ELSE!" through the window-screen.
We had tea parties and did homework and drew maps to great treasure, and those
old boards heard young secrets and dreams, and felt the splash of many a
teenage tear.

The heat of the day was often assuaged a bit
when whichever kid belonged to the backyard would go into the house
and make KoolAid. It was the real thing, as well, requiring a cup
of sugar into the pitcher with the nose-filling doooost of the
powder. A big long stir, thecrickkkkandclunnnkkkk of a twisted
ice-tray, and grabbing of whatever glasses or cups were allowed out into the
yard. My favorites were these:

Holding those thin, flash-freezy aluminum
cylinders in your hand, rolling them across your reddened, blazing forehead,
holding them to a sunburnt cheek---the relief was blessedly
soothing. And even as the ice melted, the glasses seemed to
stay miraculously cold, as the last sweet dregs were uptipped and
swallowed.

Sometimes we'd all troop down to the store
with its own clackety door, and an even-more-adamant command not to slam---over
the years that screen billowed and stretched, prey to a thousand knees and
elbows, with the Nehi or Hires or Coca Cola handplate wearing to
rust. Outside of touristy Kountry Kitcheny places or old
plank-floor originals, who of today could imagine a place of business with an
actualscreen door?

First, there was a trip over to the old Coke
'case" with the uplift of that heavy lid carrying the scent of galvanized
metal, the deep rich tire-store smell of the black rubber gasket, and the
somehow-salty scent of the ice-floating water within.

We never grabbed a standing bottle by its
neck---if it was sticking out of the water, it wasn't cold enough.
We'd fish deep into those Arctic depths, feeling the shock on our immersed
hand, letting the pure-D bone-chill and then the ache of the fumbling set our
hand on fire with the deadening.

And despite the
hundred-grubby-hands-a-day jooged down into that water, and the probable rarity
of a good cleaning for the whole thing, we never bothered to dry the
bottles or wipe off the moisture, and I don't think anyone ever caught anything
from it. A WISSSSSP past the opener, hoping that the
almost-freeze of the drink didn't cause it to foam up and waste a drop in
overflow, and then those first upended burning swallows. Nothing
can describe it; nothing can equal it.

And sometimes, just sometimes, if you'd been
really good, or played your cards right, or the planets were aligned, you could
hold your bottle up to the sun and actually watch the drink freeze---top to
bottom, as "the air hit it." And THAT was the
prize---that primeval Slushie unattainable in any other fashion, coveted and
enjoyed down to the last little crumb of ice coaxed and bottle-smacked into
your head-flung-back mouth.

We've gotta find one of those stores, and
perhaps as soon as she's a little older, Ganner will bring home some little
glass-bottle cokes, we'll chill them super-cold, and I'll teach her the true
ritual of Summer: Peanuts in her Coke.﻿